Leanback Launcher Update Puts OEM Apps in App Row

Android TV’s launcher, the Leanback Launcher, just received its first update since December to version 1.1.5. Although the changelog just mentions “Bug Fixes”, it does seem like there are a few noticeable changes on some devices. Some users have reported that some apps which used to appear in the “Shield Hub” section now appear in the main apps row such as Netflix.

Picture by Redditor nooneisreal

This may be a bug with the update that’s causing duplicate listings or it may be an intentional intent to reduce the confusion of where a particular app may appear. Some users are happy with the change which is simplifying the interface.

The app should be rolling out to all devices now, although you can sideload it immediately from APKMirror. It’s unknown what effect the update will have on other devices such as Sony TVs that have their own special rows for apps and games. The Nexus Player, being vanilla, doesn’t seem to have any changes.

Nick Felker is a student Electrical & Computer Engineering student at Rowan University (C/O 2017) and the student IEEE webmaster. When he's not studying, he is a software developer for the web and Android (Felker Tech). He has several open source projects on GitHub (http://github.com/fleker)
Devices: Moto G-2013 Moto G-2015, Moto 360, Google ADT-1, Nexus 7-2013 (x2), Lenovo Laptop, Custom Desktop.
Although he was an intern at Google, the content of this blog is entirely independent and his own thoughts.